On the bread line

Rumble rumble went the Tube train as it shot along the Piccadilly Line. Rumble rumble grumbled my stomach, chiming in harmony with my mode of transportation. Ah, the joys of the morning commute. My morning porridge – though packed with fruit, nuts and seeds and totally delicious – hadn’t quite hit the spot but I had a plan to fill the hole and sate my tummy tiger. Luckily, I reached my destination before my stomach started actually talking to my fellow travellers.


I’d heard tell, through the realms of Twitter, that the Gail’s Bakery that The Boy and I had visited only last month had been closed for a day for refurbishment. To celebrate their shiny new store, they were giving away free bread (true story!). Needless to say, I am a sucker for free food so I didn’t need to be told twice. Thankfully, the South Kensington branch isn’t too much of a diversion to prevent me from popping in on my way to work and indulging.

Being greeted with a smile and a warm pain au chocolat was a great way to kick-start my day. The staff were wonderfully bright and breezy for pre-9am (can you tell that I’m not what you’d call a morning person?). I adore passion and the ladies here obviously love what they do. Why wouldn’t they when they are surrounded by glorious coffee and quality cake?

I was gifted a reassuringly crisp loaf of San Francisco sour dough bread swathed in one of their trademark thick brown paper bags. Sour dough is one of my very recent discoveries but, for me, it’s the antithesis of the usual sponge-y supermarket loaf. Gail’s San Fran loaf has a thick robust crust with a thin skin of flour (floury fingerprints - a tell-tale sign that I’d been sneaking bread!) and a light, chewy crumb. It’s great simply sliced and used for a sandwich but I think that it truly comes into its own when you toast it. I like it crispy on the outside but with a hint of raw chewiness in the middle. Slather it with honey or jam and it’s an absolute delight! Try it and you won’t think of bread in the same way again.

Bread aside, their newly refreshed South Ken branch is looking mighty fine! Go and check it out for yourselves.

Gail’s has ten bakeries in the city of London and their South Kensington branch is open from 7am on weekdays.

No such thing as a free lunch?

Volunteers in the Feeding 5k kitchen working hard to feed the hungry lunchtime masses

Or so they say. Who are 'they' anyway? Because they are wrong.

Friday saw queues that stretched around Trafalgar Square as many hurried to be one of the lucky 5,000 to be fed with surplus food that would have otherwise been thrown away. The sun shone as speakers instilled the captive audience with the virtues of creating less food waste. I stood in raptures as we were told stories of sorry cauliflowers that grew ‘too big’ for the supermarkets standards (!) and delicious but ‘misshapen’ fruit and vegetables that are turned away by the Big Four.

Beautiful curly carrots!

Producers and chefs alike had turned out to meet and share with their knowledge with the public and it was great to see the number of people that had been drawn to the event. I got my (geeky) thrills by spotting Valentine Warner casually mingling with the crowds before his turn on stage to cook in front of the masses.

We arrived early, just before midday, as we were keen to taste what discarded dishes the huge industrial kitchens had put together. I was slightly staggered by the queue – there must have been about two hundred hungry folks ready and waiting – but this moved extremely quickly when food starting being served. There were plenty of friendly volunteers around to direct us to our free portion of vegan veggie curry and rice, which was flavourful but not at all spicy so it seemed to please everyone from us young professionals in office wear to the under-fives in buggies.

Grabbie, grabbie. Visitors go mad for discarded produce.

Once we’d filled our faces, we explored a little more of what the event had to offer. There was an air of premature January-sale-hysteria as volunteers from the wonderful Fareshare and local school children handed out bags of fruit and vegetables, which would have otherwise gone to waste. Although the odd slightly squishy grape was obviously sub-par (though still perfectly edible), the vast majority was virtually perfect. Between us, my group were given half a dozen bananas, a large bunch of grapes, a teensy pumpkin and four or five pears which were all delicious and apparently unblemished. We also saw curly carrots and small pineapples in the arms of fellow revellers. This prompted a lot of healthy debate about the peculiar standards the supermarkets have developed in response to our demands. Why on earth are the supermarkets throwing perfectly good food like this away?

A mere hour inspired a lot of conversations among my peers, which has got to be a good thing. The most common comment that I overheard was the realisation that we’re so lucky to have food at all and disbelief that, while some are starving, we are turning edible food away because it doesn’t conform to our aesthetic expectations. And all of this is before the food even hits our shelves! We throw away about 4.4 million tonnes of food that could have been eaten. If we stop this blatant waste of resources, our family finances will see the benefits as well as the environment that we live in.

If you’re looking for more information on how to reduce your food wastage, have a look on Love Food Hate Waste. If you’d like to help the amazing efforts of Fareshare in redistributing unwanted food to some of the most needy in our nation, have a look at their website. To find out more about the fantastic Feeding 5k day, have a peek at this year's event website.

Falling food waste and a free lunch

Food prices are rising while salaries are staying stubbornly still and that’s if you’re lucky enough to have successfully found and kept hold of a job in the last year or so. Many households are struggling with rising bills and a new study from the Waste and Resources Action Programme (WRAP) has found that the current economic situation has encouraged everyone to reduce the amount of food that we throw away.

Despite a 13 per cent drop in usable food waste, as a nation we still generate 7.2 million tonnes of household food waste every year of which around 60% could have been eaten. This is crazy – when money is tight, we should be watching the (compost) bin as well as our wallets. I don’t think that the confusion over sell by dates helps though hopefully the recent shake-up of regulations will make things clearer for everyone. However, I think many people (and many of my twenty-something-old peers are particularly guilty of this one) need good ways to use-up leftovers.

If you’re London-based and interested in reducing your food waste, you might want to check out Feeding 5k in Trafalgar Square tomorrow. With plenty of inspiration by way of living cooking demos from the likes of Valentine Warner and Thomasina Miers, you can find out great ways to cut the amount of edible stuff that you might otherwise throw away. If you're not London-based, fear not as I'll be schlepping over to capture the best bits (and bites) so that you're not left out.

As well as highlighting clever cooking, the event is championing the work of fantastic charities like Fare Share, a national charity who redistribute surplus food, that would otherwise be discarded, to the most needy. They also provide training on nutrition and safe food preparation. What lovely people!

So head on over to see the waste-eating pigs and flex your muscles while having a go at surplus apple pressing. Oh and you get a free lunch to boot! What more could you want?

Feeding 5k will be taking place on Friday 18th November in Trafalgar Square, London between 12 and 2pm. First come first served!

Autumnal Tomato & Marrow Soup

It definitely feels like autumn. The days are starting to draw in and I'm getting forgetful... If you're part of the Facebook revolution, you'll already know that we went away to enjoy some time on our friend's narrowboat this weekend. I'd prepared a warming casserole for our first meal on the boat and promised to share more details with you on my return. Now, I can be rather forgetful at times so I wrote a list for myself. Toothbrush? Check. A little light reading? Check. Camera? Check. All set. Or maybe not because, when I packed away my faithful camera, I didn't check that it had a memory card in it. School girl error! So I had a camera but no way of recording what turned out to be a lovely meal (though I do say so myself). I gave myself a stern talking to, I can tell you. That aside, we had a fantastic weekend with lots of picnic lunching on the roof.

For now, please warm your cockles with another marrow recipe. Come rain or shine - blustery chilling showers or crisp icy sunshine - this soup is rich, flavoursome and easily prepared in far less than thirty minutes. I made it first thing in the morning so that the only thing that stood in our way of a tasty hot dinner was a little heating up. I even took a serving to work for my lunch, which went down a treat.

This recipe was great for using up some of the marrow that I've recently been given by a colleague however there's still half left in the fridge so there's sure to be another marrow recipe popping up on here in the next few days!

Autumnal Tomato & Marrow Soup
Serves 4

½ onion, sliced
½ large marrow, cubed (my whole marrow was about 40cm by 15cm - a whopper!)
1 green pepper, sliced
1 tin of plum tomatoes, chopped
1 tsp of vegetable stock powder
1 sprig of thyme or 1 tsp dried thyme leaves
1 sprig of oregano or 1 tsp of dried oregano
1 clove garlic, sliced

- Sweat the onion in a large saucepan for a few minutes until soft and slightly translucent.
- Throw in the marrow and cook over a medium heat. It will soften, break down and become a little watery in the pan.
- Add the tomatoes, pepper, stock and herbs to the pan. If the juice from the tomatoes doesn’t cover the marrow, top up with boiling water. Bring to a simmer and add the garlic.
- Simmer for 10 minutes or until all of the vegetables are soft.
- Serve with grated cheddar or crumbled goats cheese and a hunk of crusty bread.

Hearty Healthy Pizza Stuffed Marrow

It's not often that I get déjá vu however this particular incidence is unique because it revolves around vegetables. Marrows, in fact. Around this time last year, we had been gifted tons of courgettes and marrows through The Boy's workmates. This year, it's my workmates that are donating their vegetables to us. I've turned to my trusty stuffing technique for the ginormous marrow that's been taking up the best part of an entire shelf in our fridge for the last few days.

Admittedly not my best photograph for this very reason and I very nearly didn't post it for that very reason but I couldn't let vanity get in the way of showing you just how big this beast was! I decided to go for a combination of tomatoes and herbs to bring out the sweet roasted marrow flavour. Topping the whole lot with a little cheese made it quite reminiscent of pizza! The trick with this recipe is to reduce the filling down until it's almost dry; that way, the marrow doesn't go soggy when you stuff it. Slice it up and serve it with wilted swiss chard and wild rice or crusty bread to mop up the juices.

Pizza Stuffed Marrow
Serves 4 - 6

1 marrow (30cm or so long)
1 onion, chopped
1 stick of celery, chopped
1 can of plum tomatoes
2 tsp dried thyme
1 tsp dried oregano
1 clove of garlic, crushed
1 tsp vegetable stock powder
50g mature cheddar cheese

 - Preheat the oven to 190c.
 - Rinse the marrow and cut it lengthways. Scoop out the insides, leaving a 1cm (or so) strip of flesh around the skin. Place the empty halves on a baking tray and put in the oven for 20 minutes.
 - Meanwhile, sweat the onion and celery in a little oil over a medium heat while you chop the marrow innards into chunks. Add them to the pan and let them cook down. They'll express a lot of watery liquid and when they do, turn up the heat to simmer it off. Sprinkle the herbs and garlic into the pan.
 - While the marrow simmers, drain the tomatoes (keep the juices for something else) and roughly chop. Add them into saucepan and stir. Continue to simmer, stirring occasionally to ensure that it doesn't stick to the bottom of the pan.
 - When the mixture has reduced down so that there's no remaining liquid, remove the marrow halves from the oven and spoon the mixture into it until it is level. Top with cheese and pop back into the oven for 15 minutes or until the cheese is golden brown.

Hand picked wild mussles and Moules Marinaire

Having anchored our boat in a quiet bay, The Boy was feeling intrepid and ventured out onto the scratchy, barnacle-clad rocks in search of little fishies. After a period of disappearance, he returned, pink cheeked with pride bearing all sorts of goodies. His bucket contained a variety of delicate, spritely fish, an baby starfish and five shrimps. 

The incy, wincy starfish (only an inch or so across) was coo-ed over and then gently placed back into its pool but we held on to the shrimps - good eatin' to be had there! Our seas and beaches are full of gorgeous goodies that anyone can make the most of if you know where to look.

Buoyed by his successful hoard, we went to for a wander along the surf and what did we find? Several mammoth rocks encrusted in midnight blue mussels which, in turn, were stuffed with silvery barnacles. We grinned gleefully at one another and picked eagerly at the shells. They weren't as stuck fast as I expected - I had memories of a mini-me whacking unsuspecting limpets with rocks in an attempt to knock them off their home rocks before they suckered themselves on. Mussels are far easier to harvest, as it turns out. 

After a quick google (the wonders of Smart phones) and some advice from our elders, we made quick work of collecting a box full. They were quite easily teased from the rocks by twisting them which broke their 'beards' away - the delicate strings that fix them to the surface of the stone - without damaging the mollusk. We mostly picked from the waterline and chose mussels which stayed in the water for as long as possible - our intuition told us that these would be the freshest but I've no idea if this is correct. We mostly went for mussels which were 6 - 7cm long and avoided the baby ones (less than 5cm). As with all foraging, we only took what we would be able to eat and left more than we took (we wouldn't want to spoil it for others now, would we?). Since our expedition, I've read that mussels actually spawn between May and August so harvesting is generally discouraged during this time. We stored them in a large plastic box which was filled with fresh sea water and kept them in the shade for the trip home.

Back at our rented caravan, we prepped our goodies. Have a look at the instructions above if you haven't done it before and are curious. It's a bit labour intensive but it's well worth it. Myself, The Boy and my Mum-in-Love stood around the sink and chatted away while we worked so it was no hardship. After the cleaning was done, there was one dish in the fore front of all of our imaginations that would showcase these little treasures of the sea.

Moules Marinaire

Serves five as a starter

1.5kg prepared mussels, rinsed

1 onion, finely chopped

2 cloves of garlic, minced

100ml white wine or cider

120ml single cream

Sunflower oil or butter

 - Sweat the onion and garlic in a splash of oil or knob of butter in a saucepan large enough to take all of the mussels until completely softened.

 - Add the mussels and stir well so that they're completely coated in onion.

 - Turn up the heat and pour in wine and cream. Cover and simmer for 3 - 4 minutes or until the majority of the mussels are open. Shake the pan every so often so move the mussels about.

 - Stir in the parsley and ladle into bowls. Serve with crusty bread to mop up any juices. Discard any mussels that have not opened during cooking.